LEGO Harry Potter shaping up to be magic

I wouldn’t call the recent Harry Potter games awful. Serviceable? Yes. Putrid? No. They’ve just been swallowed up by the lingering stereotype that all movie-based games belong in the trash rather than store shelves.

The only way movie franchises escape this fate seems to be if “LEGO” is placed in front of their titles. The word acts like magic giving any franchise the aura of respectability and fun. Look what it did for Indiana Jones. Before Batman: Arkham Asylum, Lego Batman was the top Caped Crusader title. And don’t get me started on what it did for the Star Wars prequels. Credit Traveller’s Tales for building a brand and reputation that gamers can count on.

Jonathan Smith, head of production at TT Games, said they’ll be some familiar elements for fans combined with the humor that the developer is known for. The most obvious difference is that LEGO characters don’t talk. They gesture, they mumble their moods, they goof off, but players shouldn’t expect Harry to shout out spells or wax euphoric about being a wizard. This isn’t a deal-breaker for me and it helps with the game’s light mood. By now, fans should already know the shape of the plots and LEGO Harry Potter doesn’t try to one-up the words that are already on the page.

Instead, Traveller’s Tales adds a dash of zaniness to the proceedings. For example, when Dumbledore vists No. 4, Privet Drive, Hagrid flies in and crashes his motorcycle while delivering baby Harry. That’s not necessarily in the books, but it’s in keeping with the LEGO games. Further on when Hagrid returns to take Harry to Hogwarts, they can get into some mischief in Diagonally and the Leaky Cauldron.

That’s where Smith showed the basic mechanics of the game. LEGO Harry Potter’s combat two-player action and spells. As in more recent games, fans now have the freedom to move anywhere. The game accommodates the separation by automatically splitting the screen and recombining it when players meet back together.

As for spells, players will learn and use them to attack foes, cause mischief or solve puzzles. In addition, Traveller’s Tales employs a new physics system that’s more realistic. As Hagrid, Smith caused a lot of chaos in the Leaky Cauldron using his pink umbrella to cast Wingardium Leviosa to lift and throw objects. The impact and trajectory of a thrown mug or chair works as it should in the game world.

Causing this mayhem is how players collect studs — the Lego currency — that’s scattered throughout the world. Focusing on a more involved use of the physics engine, Smith showed me a puzzle where Harry has to manually move and rearrange Lego blocks to create stairs. If players built it wrong, the whole structure would topple over. If players built it in a way that it tipped backward on a wall, it could create stairs. The new gameplay wrinkle adds creativity to the world.

Showing me the structure of LEGO Harry Potter, Smith said that Diagonalley acted as the place where players can purchase items with their studs. They can buy more than 140 characters to use, build new ones using the simple editor and create levels at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. It seems as though every major place in the Harry Potter universe is in the game, but the grandest structure is Hogwarts itself, which acts as the hub world.

The big difference is that instead of using the school as a simple way to get into levels, it seems as if Traveller’s Tales wants to treat the castle like a giant world similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Metroid. The secrets and all its adventures are all there, but to access out-of-the-way places, players will need to learn spells and those are taught on a year-to-year basis.

The longer Harry is at Hogwarts, the more spells he’ll have access to. Players will be able to switch out of them by pressing a button that pauses the game so that players can choose among eight incantations spread out in different directions. Think of kiddie version of the spell-casting system in Mass Effect.

But to actually learn the spells and abilities, Harry and company will have to go to class. That’s the other part of life at Hogwarts aside from exploring the castle and following the ghost studs left behind by Nearly Headless Nick. The classes seem to be puzzles or scenarios, where players have to employ the lessons of class to solve the predicament. When learning one spell, Ron accidentally creates a ruckus in the classroom. Children are caught up by these latches and Harry will have to figure out how to free students using counterweights and switches scattered throughout the classroom.

Later on, players will be outside, learning how to fly on broom sticks. Harry will have to rescue a Neville Longbottom who has gotten atop a broomstick and keeps floating up not knowing how to drop down. To accomplish broomstick flying in LEGO Harry Potter, Traveller’s Tales treats it like a vehicle similar to the cars in Indiana Jones. Pressing the jump button puts players on a higher plane, where they’ll stay. Letting go of the button, drops them lower. It seems like this could work, but what I really wanted to see was Quidditch. Unfortunately, Smith didn’t show it.

From my perspective, LEGO Harry Potter is shaping up to be Traveller’s Tales most ambitious project. Harry’s adventure seems to be more open world and the game rewards those who like to experiment with spells. Running around casting random incantations yields some hilarious results.

It creates makeshift vehicles like a walking chair. Zap a couch and it can turn alive and devour a member of Gryffindor. The world that Traveller’s Tales created looks to be just as imaginative as the one Rowling wrote about, and because of this, there’s little doubt that the game will satisfy the most ardent boy wizard fans.

Gieson Cacho

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